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Continuing from the previous open thread….
Judy got the year wrong on when he said he filed his Motion for Relief of Judgement. It was filed in 2017 not 2016.
Où est notre ami Lupin? FÉLICITATIONS!
Tout le monde n’est pas fou.
@RC
In addition, Judy’s Statement of the Case is a word salad that will confound anyone who tries to make sense of it.
There are two possible scenarios, as I see it:
1. The Tenth Circuit will deny his IFP application, or
2. If his IFP application is granted, the defendants will decline to respond to the motion, and Judy, because his is an ignoramus, will claim that entitles him to a default judgment.
Incidentally, the Tenth Circuit acknowledged receipt of a copy of Judy’s mandamus petition to SCOTUS but declined to file it.
The voters in France apparently took a good look at Trump and decided that they would not go down that road. Le Pen underperformed her numbers in the polls, getting only 34.5% of the vote.
My best thoughts and congratulations go out to Lupin today. Once again France led the way by being right just as they were when they told George Bush it was wrong to go to war in Iraq.
Somewhere Rambo Ike is wallowing in ignorance as he does every day.
I think it will be the second, with the eventual, terse affirmance of the district court’s denial.
Yeah; ex-con Judy was crowing about how important that was. Ex-con Judy is too dumb to understand that, by receiving but not filing it, the 10th Circuit won’t even look at his SCOTUS “petition.”
Speaking of ex-con Judy’s SCOTUS non-petition: It still has not been docketed. I suspect ex-con Judy has at this point been told why, but he prefers to play the martyr.
You mean, AS USUAL, the convicted felon terrorist liar chooses to pretend it didn’t happen. He is well practiced at ignoring things that don’t agree with his narrative. His problem is that no one else will.
The latest is that Judy wrote a letter to Matt Drudge, whining that the media won’t cover his frivolous filings. In the letter is this whopper: “The 15 Cases I’ve been involved in across the entire Country has broke me and I’ve been forced to file for the Appeal in forma pauperis.”
I haven’t checked all of his Federal Court cases, but he proceeded IFP in his first SCOTUS appeal back in 2012.
He has no money because by his own admission he spends more time working on his frivolous lawsuit and his blog than on his business.
I read the Tenth Circuit’s rules and it appears that it will not deny IFP status on the basis of a frivolous appeal unless the District Court flags it as frivolous. So you are probably correct.
I have been playing this vid several times a day since Sunday. Vive la France! Vive le subtitles! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIxOl1EraXA . Thanks to TFB for the Poynting Vector.
In less happy news, birtherism is on the rise.
http://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2017/05/04/birtherism-trump-ignorance-rich-barlow
Following Trump’s categorical statement that Obama was born in the US, there was a dip, but it’s coming back.
The New York Times wrote: “people may simply forget the contrary evidence they’ve heard and fall back on their old beliefs,” especially in a polarized nation whose ethos is my side, right or wrong.
Dear Friends,
Thank you for your kind wishes and congratulations. In addition to the well-publicized 66-34% victory of Emmanuel Macron vs pro-nazi Le Pen there are a few more facts that offer an interesting comparison between our two countries:
First, among the voters of right-wing candidate Fillon in the first round, 48% voted for Macron while only 20% went for Le Pen. If your honest Republican voters had chosen to vote for Clinton or stay home in the same proportion instead of tribally voting for fascist Trump, things would have been very different. Nearly half of our right-wing exhibited moral principles, while I’m sorry to say, yours had none.
On the Far left, 52% of Melanchon voters went for Macron while only 7% chose Le Pen. The Bernie Bro/lesser of two evils etc. dynamic was there, but not as pronounced as in the US. Chalk up one more for sanity.
The fact of the matter is that Le Pen got a total of 10.7 million votes while abstentions got 12 million plus another 4.2 who voted blank. That’s 16.2 million who chose to not vote nazi even if they didn’t like the center-right candidate Macron which got 20.6 million votes. So the nazi finished a distant third.
Speaking of abstentions, voter turnout was 74.62% universally considered dismal by our political pundits (and indeed lower than in previous elections), until we learned that the turnout in the 2016 US election was 54.7% then we laughed hysterically.
Finally, the Russian hackers joined forced with the American alt.right to hack our non-nazi candidate and succeeded, but only to the extent that (a) anticipating the hack, the Macron IT staff played a magistral intox/disinformation campaign on the evil hackers, and (b) the Government and our Media joined forces to conspicuously NOT report the hacks. Only a feeble mention of a fake Bahamas bank account attributed to Macron (fake news) was mentioned by Le Pen herself and her “Bannon” in the last days or so — and she will face judicial consequences for that.
All in all, I have good reasons to be proud of my country and countrymen, even though there is still a heap of problems ahead of us, especially the legislative elections (mid-June) that will take place in a chaotic and yet-to-be restructured political environment.
On the plus side, the National Front appears to be solidly fractured between the old nazi guard and the younger neo-nazi wing who want to change the party’s name, platform and kick out the old guard. Popcorn time.
It may be churlish of me to bring it up but your President’s message of congratulation to our newly elected president was a third-person tweet, the official message that came later was a letter from the State Dpt being credited to a minor official. Not even Putin did that. It saddens me to observe once again that your country continues to officially behave an a mild enemy of my country, and indeed of Europe.
It makes us sad and embarrassed too. Great to hear from you Lupin and thanks for the details on the election.
—-
Congratulations to the People of France. And, on behalf of the world, Thank You!
Doc, you didn’t make the cut here:
http://www.wnd.com/2017/05/top-10-enemies-that-have-attacked-wnd-over-its-truth-telling/
That’s some serious snowflakery there.
Yes, Lupin, congratulations indeed. I am curious though, when you go to vote, how are the ballots set up?
Well, first you get the official/vetted literature in the post.
The day of the vote (always a Sunday) you show up at your local Town Hall (8 am to 7 pm is the norm, sometime 6 pm). There is a table with a 4x5ish piece of paper with the names of a candidate, as many individual piece of papers as there are candidates, plus a pile of official envelopes (recycled paper).
You take a bulletin for each of the candidates, go into a booth, place the one your choice inside the envelope, and discard the others in a bin provided to that effect.
When yo leave the booth you go stand in line with your envelope & your voter registration card. At the head of the line, there’s three officials, and a clear plexiglas ballot box, with a slot linked to a counting device. First they check your card against the official rolls, then they let you slip your envelope through the slot. (Counter moves up by 1.) Then you sign in a space next to your name in the rolls.
That’s it. Being on my local town council, I’m there, in charge of checking the proxies (absentee voters).
The two important things to remember are:
1) France does not have Fox News (and indeed Fox News couldn’t operate legally as such here);
and
2) 70 to 80% of French people (varying and at least for the time being) still refuse to vote for Nazis
________
Gee, what a coincidence.
Lupin thank you for the information. A different process than I expected, but makes perfect sense.
After what the Nazis did in France I can definitely see why.
In my initial article, I pointed out that only 7% of those who had voted for far-left candidate Melanchon in the first round switched to nazi Le Pen in the second.
The balance (93%) either abstained, voted blank, or switched to Macron.
I made the comment, rashly, that this was better than in the US and someone on DKos disputed that fact, stating that more Sanders/Stein supporters had voted Clinton.
I asked the person how many Sanders/Stein supporters had voted for Trump, but either he didn’t have that figure, or wouldn’t answer.
I’ll be curious to know: Did more or less than 7% of Sanders/Stein supporters in the US switch to Trump?
At the end of the day, the locked plexiglas box is opened. First envelopes are counted, twice. Then teams of four people are each given batches of 100 envelopes. One person opens the envelope, another reads the ballot inside, and two report the information in a table. Two more persons supervise what’s going on.
Eventually the filled in tables are passed to another team who tallies up the count, which once completed, is officially announced.
The system is pretty much foolproof unless there is massive corruption on a grand scale at the town hall.
Our election system is a disgrace compared with about any other country in the civilized world. We should go to Sunday voting with all paper ballots. There is absolutely no reason for electronic machines that are essentially incapable of being audited. Even a larger precincts there is no excuse for not being able to hand count votes within an hour of the polls closing.
We centralize the counting at a board of elections where it seems problems tend to develop and it takes hours to count the ballots in some cases.
Of course then there are the voter ID laws targeted towards minorities and poor people.
I would suggest that Saturday voting makes more sense than Sunday. Between church and NFL football, people already have a lot to do on Sunday, especially in autumn. When I lived in Colorado I knew people who literally spent six hours in church on Sundays – four hours in the morning and another two hours in the evening.
Better yet, make Election Day a national holiday.
That is why NY was the last state to select their voting machines which have a paper trail for every vote. At every election there is at least someone who laments the loss of the lever machines, which, while simple, did not leave a paper trail and were prone to fail and were dependent on very esoteric programming which only a handful of people in each county understood.
Human nature being what it is, I do not believe for a minute that French people are inherently smarter or more moral than Americans.
This is why I favor a more self-regulated society (through laws passed by representative assemblies and enforced by an independent judiciary) as opposed to your system. Arguably, you have demonstrated that you (as a people) cannot handle the liberties granted to you by your First and Second Amendments.
The notion that truth would drive out lies and good speech would drive out bad speech has been demonstrated as false, just as much as unfettered access to guns of any kind has not increased your safety. The result is a rogue fascist state where freedom instead of flourishing is actively being curtailed and fear of violence is on the rise (based on hat i read here & there).
A historian whose name I can’t recall stated that centuries begin 15 years after the chronological mark: 1715, death of Louis XIV; 1815: Waterloo; 1915: end of WWI. 2015, the rise of Donald J. Trump may well mark the real beginning of the 21st century and of a new America that will be radically different from what we’ve known all our lives. If you don’t want that America to be truly awful, you’re going to have to reform all your political systems in depth. (We face this challenge as well.)
Many things have happened gradually over the last 40 years or so that have eroded our democracy in America. Before we had 24 news channels and the internet we got out information from the evening network news, hourly five minute radio news broadcasts, newspapers, and magazines. The quality was mostly outstanding and journalistic standards were high.
In the 80’s Reagan ended the Fairness Doctrine and the quality of journalism began to go to pot. AM radio stations replaced music programming, which had moved to FM, with right wing talk programs like Rush Limbaugh. They would have never been able to do that with the Fairness Doctrine in place. Also cable and satellite TV began to become ubiquitous. This allowed for 24 hour news channels to have a greater penetration. Fox News began because the right felt figured out that a 24 hour news channel was the perfect propaganda tool.
Simultaneously with these new tools the conservatives perfected the art of getting elected. They built on the “Southern strategy” that Nixon had used and Reagan perfected to play upon the baser emotions of fear and racism in the electorate. The Democrats have been able to elect moderate presidents twice, Bill Clinton won because George Bush was a terrible President and candidate and Obama won because George W. Bush was an even worse President than his father and left the economy in a mess. It also helped that McCain had never been a favorite of the conservatives and he managed to pick a running mate who literally scared people.
Trump may screw things up so badly that we get another moderate Democrat in ’20 or ’24 but until some of the underlying problems with the media and the political system are addressed I don’t hold out much hope for our system getting healed.
We also had Walter Cronkite and others who aspired to his stature.
Ex-con Judy’s latest:
1. Ex-con Judy is offering to TRIPLE YOUR MONEY if you contribute to his lawsuit and he wins. What’s zero tripled again? :think:
2. Ex-con Judy’s getting evicted.
In other birther news, John Dummett pleaded no contest to animal cruelty and is scheduled to do 60 days in jail.
He also is operating under the delusion that the respondents are required to file a response.
Judy still believes that Justice Gorsuch is considering his mandamus petition, even though SCOTUS received it a month ago and has not docketed it.
I think it is just simpler to say that Judy is operating under delusion, as that pretty well covers ALL cases.
I like the way Judy begins by writing about himself in third person then slips into first person.
The new landlord is evicting Judy ostensibly so he can renovate the dilapidated apartment and raise the rent.
Judy is excited that Doc lists his blog on “The Bad” list here and that The Fogbow talks about him. I suppose when your life is as miserable as Judy’s is (entirely of his own making) you will take any attention you can get. He is just the kind of pathetic loser whom Rondeau seems to love.
Doc, a question
You have created a safe-space for us to submit facts, fact check and opine. Lupin is in France and someone I think is from Australia. How many states and countries have traveled to this spectacular site which you created and have kept active?
Merci cent fois.
Most people would learn a thing or two if they filed multiple appeals, but not Judy. He previously filed a Court of Appeals brief in Judy v. Obama in 2014, the defendants did not submit a response, and the dismissal was upheld.
Now he files another Court of Appeals brief and he believes that the defendants are required to submit a response.
Did you read the latest screaming headline at the P&E?: Ex-con Judy reports PACER problems! For a few hours! Over the weekend!
I smell a Pulitzer for Rondeau! 🙄
Yes, that was hilarious. How sad is that that Judy spent Mothers Day checking his frivolous case on PACER and Rondeau spent Mothers Day writing about Judy checking his case on PACER?
Someone got a surprisingly cogent comment through moderation though:
Indeed.
Dr. Statist,
Barry Obama was a hate filled mouthpiece who never missed an opportunity to scapegoat police. He also spent eight years attempting to disarm citizens. Yet you absurdly describe him as ‘very presidential”. Obviously you liked and supported him, rendering every word you typed here as biased. You wasted eight years preaching to the choir. Congratulations. Thinking men saw right through you. Go pick up your government paycheck.
Careful, Lupin. Disagreeable speech is protected in France, but maligning a group as being a danger to humanity is a no-no (and make no mistake: the USA, under its current leadership, is most definitely a danger to humanity). I’d hate for you to be imprisoned for saying the wrong thing. But have no fear! Trump and his people are “looking at” gutting our pesky First Amendment, so you can rejoice. Because what could possibly go wrong with our Authoritarian du Jour deciding what is and what isn’t libel, or “fake news” or “hate speech.” If only amending our speech laws were easier, like in France, Stephen Colbert could already be rotting in The (Trump) Tower. Our Failed Mail-Order Meat Salesman-in-Chief ordered a missile strike with a flick of his wrist, over dessert (and here’s wishing murdering people with missiles and drones were at least as hard as changing speech from being a right to a privilege). Perhaps it was over a nice plate of tortured duck’s liver that François Hollande decided to move “hate speech” to France’s general penal code. So now those suspected of uttering the un-utterable can be fast-tracked through the system. Praise the Lord and pass the Victory Gin!
And you think repression and censorship are better options? It’s a matter of scientific fact that censoring a speaker often has the opposite result from what is desired; namely, an increase in the desire for some to hear the forbidden message, and the perception of a threat against a group that increases identification with that group, leading to even more anger and aggression toward outside groups. I’m sure many French people were thrilled that Dieudonné M’bala M’bala was prosecuted for his offensive speech, but many Muslims saw it as an example of a double standard. And to many a descendant of African immigrants, he’s a hero now. I’d be surprised if his sales didn’t go up.
With crackdowns on speech, of course, come the unfortunate side effects: loss of sleep, paranoia, irritable bowel syndrome, warrantless wiretaps, government keystroke logs, “religious liberty” (aka blasphemy) laws, and so on. In extreme cases, the sufferer sees a holographic, five-story tall Recep Erdoğan explaining to his people that he has taken over control of all their newspapers.
Lupin,
Those of us on the right are anti government. We want as little government as possible per the Constitution. Taking that position to the extreme would lead to anarchy where there is no government. Those on the left are pro government. Taking that position to the extreme leads to totalitarianism where the state controls everything. Nazi Germany was totalitarianism. The state was God. Therefore the nazis were left wing extremists.
Le Pen endorses big government. She is a leftist. That is the reason that voter turnout was a record low. Macron and Le Pen are virtually the same.
Why not just cut to the chase and say “I am an idiot”?
Reality Check,
She was backed by socialists and her anchor of support came French communists. She is a feminist and pro abortion.
Macron is a Rothschild banker put up there by the globalist, anti-sovereignty elites. Hardly a man of the people.
You are an imbecile, and worse of all, an ignorant imbecile.
I would suggest reading Shirer’s books on the collapse of the French Third Republic and subsequent Rise (and Fall) of the Third Reich, but I can’t help feeling that you won’t take that advice and instead continue to wallow in your imbecility.
For all the loathsomeness of some of the French Front National supporters online (and believe me, some are really appalling), I never seem to come across the degree of sheer ignorance that I see in American right-wing supporters. It’s like you guys are on a planet of your own.
With all due respect, first (and foremost) French Law regarding hate speech does NOT work the way you think it does. We have CHARLIE-HEBDO which is more incendiary than anything you have in the US, so I’d argue we have in fact quantitatively MORE freedom of speech in France than you do, not less, despite your First Amendment.
On your second point, once we could argue theoreticals with equal strength, as you just did. After Trump’s and Macron’s elections, we no longer have to because we have demonstrable evidence that your system failed you. It’s not that what you said is wrong, it is that it doesn’t and did not work that way in reality.
I drew a parallel with the Second Amendment because I think the intent behind people being able to bear guns was a good one in the 18th century, but that too hasn’t worked recently.
Ultimately, human nature being what it is, I believe in regulating some of people’s worst and more dangerous habits. Obviously regulations have to come from the people and be approved by the people and enforced fairly by proper courts, not by the whim of a would-be dictator. Too much regulation is bad, but not enough is bad as well. Your country sometimes falls in the second category, although you have plenty of bad regulations. (So do we.) Striking a balance is essential.
Thanks for making my point. Please continue.
Right-wing trolls such as Jack Parsons don’t read books. Books are written by pointy-headed liberal elitists. Jack gets everything he needs to know from Fox News and films by convicted felon Dinesh D’Souza.
He reminds me of a guy I debated on Compuserve years ago who claimed that the Nazis were socialists because the name of the party was the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. I asked him if that meant that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is a democracy and/or a republic.
No argument from me there (and isn’t that refreshing! 😉 ). But we’re talking about the First Amendment. I’ve heard a lot of explanations for why Hillary Clinton lost the election, from the reasonable to the bizarre, but I’ve yet to hear a compelling case that the First Amendment is at fault. Respectfully, I submit that you have not yet made that case, either. I also believe you are committing the logical fallacy of begging the question with this type of reasoning: Donald Trump won the election because the First Amendment is flawed; how do we know the First Amendment is flawed? Because Donald Trump won the election.
And yet, our system did, indeed, fail us. I simply don’t blame our speech laws for that failure. Remember, there is plenty of fear and loathing in America right now. People on every band of the political spectrum are fed up with the status quo. Hillary Clinton is a Corporate Democrat, through and through, and her phony platitudes hit a sour note across that spectrum, even (especially?) among Progressive Democrats. You could make a good case that the disaster known as the Citizens United decision is the root of this evil, but the First Amendment wasn’t driving the getaway car for that decision; it was a victim. I’ve never believed that the authors of the First Amendment had anything like Citizens United in mind. And besides, it was Hillary’s corporate connections – among other things – that did her in. Trump was the populist. He came from, and was approved by, the people, just the way you like it (and let’s please agree to not wander off into the “Electoral College” weeds on this point). If “fake news” had an effect on the election, that’s a different story. The First Amendment in no way allows for libel, nor the hacking of personal communications.
Point well taken. I was trying to add a little humor, but to imply that a French Stephen Colbert could be tossed in jail on the whim of the president is a little too hyperbolic, to put it mildly. As Charlie-Hebdo proves, satire of questionable taste is still free speech in France. Comedians don’t get arrested for questioning the status quo. Or do they? There is the aforementioned case of Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, a comedian prosecuted for what, again? Expressing frustration at what he sees as persecution of Muslims in France? Refuse to protect such speech at your peril, my friend. And regarding incendiary publications, have you visited Breitbard.com? Here are a few headlines:
“The solution to online ‘harassment’ is simple: Women should log off”
“Would you rather your child had feminism or cancer?”
“Bill Kristol: Republican spoiler, renegade Jew”
Mainstream publications in the US don’t generally print images of Muhammad, either out of fear or because going out of your way to deeply offend millions of people’s religious sensibilities just isn’t cool. Who am I to judge? But the lack of cartoons in American publications depicting Muhammad fornicating with a goat isn’t due to First Amendment restrictions.
I checked: Dieudonné’s sales did go up after he was prosecuted. So much for silencing that son of a gun with speech laws.
Ricky,
Don’t put words in my mouth, and forget the straw man arguments. It doesn’t fit your pistol. We are conditioned to throw around terms such as “left” “right” “conservative” “liberal” “progressive” “moderate” “republican” “democrat” etc. mindlessly, without ever clearly defining them. Dumbed down paradigms all. This is the political spectrum from left to right – monarchy – oligarchy – republic – democracy – anarchy. Right wing extremism is anarchy. Indeed the “right” are those in favor of as little government as possible. The Nazis did not believe in as little government as possible. They believed in total government. An oligarchy if you will as a monarchy, rule by one, doesn’t really exist. Even Hitler had his ministers. The Nazis were not anarchists, so by definition they can never be labelled “right wing extremists” because they did not abolish government. The Nazis were left wing extremists.
Lupin,
Forget he appeal to authority You can’t always just seek out opinions that you are comfortable with. You should seek out all sides of an issue. Direct question – if those on the “right” are anti government, and the extreme of anti government is anarchy, how can you conversely label the Nazis “right wing extremists” since they were the total state, the exact opposite of anarchy? I’m asking you to answer the question not some author.
Reality Check,
Le Pen is coming close to being the next president of France due to her ability to sap support from former strongholds of the French Communist Party in the north. This may seem surprising to the uninitiated at first, until you are aware of the fact that the French Communist Party has its own history of racially tinged attacks on immigration. Nearly a third of FN voters said their second choice in the first round of the elections was the socialist candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the French Bernie Sanders.
There is no room to put words in your mouth, because your mouth is engorged with nonsense.
Ricky,
Is that all there is? No posturing pedantry?
Meanwhile, Zullo’s love affair with Montgomery may be cooling down.
I have better things to do with my time than to engage in fruitless discussions with the likes of you. So yes, that is all there is.
That’s some, uh, “logic” you’ve got going there.
Dave B,
I didn’t ask you, but since you butted in – were the Nazis anarchists?
Rickey,
Right.
No, left.
Butted in? No, this is what “butting in” looks like:
http://www.obamaconspiracy.org/2017/05/the-additional-open-thread-birther-realdonaldtrump-gives-fakenews-a-bad-name/#comment-384678
Your basic assumption is basically nuts:
“This is the political spectrum from left to right – monarchy – oligarchy – republic – democracy – anarchy.”
That’s just crazy talk. I’m not going to argue inside your own crazy world view.
You’re an idiot. You don’t know anything about politics. You don’t know anything about history. Talking to you in a waste of time.
This is, actually, a reasonable description of what happened. One might argue with a few details but overall, I wouldn’t challenge what you wrote for being inaccurate.
I fear however that the conclusions you draw from this are bonkers. The FN and the French Far Left (be they old Communist party of Melanchonistes) may find an electoral alliance on some topics expedient (not unlike the Hitler-Stalin pact), but the truth is that they are widely divided on numerous other issues.
In fact, right now, not only are the Melanchonists engaged in a full-blown war against the FN, but the Communists have refused to join either and are fielding their own slates.
Personally, I can put up with the Far Left, up to a point, but I do draw a line at the Far Right who are always more or less Nazi sympathizers or enablers. I may agree or disagree with the Far Left, but unlike Nazis, they’re not evil.
AFAIC, no arguments about the economy, unemployment or the coat of sardines will ever be on an equal footing with supporting genocide. I am disturbed and deeply disappointed that that many French people could vote for a Nazy symp, but even more disturbed and disappointed that even more Americans did the same.
Ex-con Judy, when not gabbing with his new BFF Rondeau, called SCOTUS to whine that his petition still has not been docketed.
He also thinks because his garbage was docketed by the Tenth Circuit that means the defendants have been served.
[I tried posting this yesterday, but it was flagged as Spam. Ah, Spam. Spam! Spam! Spam! Spam! Lovely Spam! Wonderful Spam! ~C]
No argument from me there (and isn’t that refreshing! 🙂 ). But we’re talking about the First Amendment. I’ve heard a lot of explanations for why Hillary Clinton lost the election, from the reasonable to the bizarre, but I’ve yet to hear a compelling case that the First Amendment is at fault. Respectfully, I submit that you have not yet made that case, either. I also believe you are committing the logical fallacy of begging the question with this type of reasoning: Donald Trump won the election because the First Amendment is flawed; how do we know the First Amendment is flawed? Because Donald Trump won the election.
And yet, our system did, indeed, fail us (though it would be more accurate to say we failed it). There is simply no basis for blaming our speech laws for Trump’s election. Remember, there is plenty of fear and loathing in America right now. People on every band of the political spectrum are fed up with the status quo. Hillary Clinton is a Corporate Democrat, through and through, and her phony platitudes hit a sour note across that spectrum, especially among Progressives. You could make a good case that the disaster known as the Citizens United decision is the root of this evil, but the First Amendment wasn’t driving the getaway car for that decision (it was more like a victim of identity theft). I’ve never believed that the authors of the First Amendment had anything like Citizens United in mind. And besides, it was Hillary’s corporate connections – among other things – that did her in. She used the filthy lucre to run non-stop TV ads reminding everyone that Trump is a lying, potty-mouthed misogynist, to no avail, and the Democrats had to rig the whole process just to get her past Bernie Sanders. Trump was the populist. He came from, and was approved by, the people, just the way you like it (and let’s please agree to not wander off into the Electoral College weeds on this point). If “fake news” had an effect on the election, that’s a different story. The First Amendment in no way allows for libel, nor the hacking of personal communications.
Point well taken. I was trying to add a little humor, but to imply that a French Stephen Colbert could be tossed in jail at the whim of the president is a little hyperbolic, to put it mildly. As Charlie-Hebdo proves, satire of questionable taste is still free speech in France. Comedians don’t get arrested for questioning the status quo. Or do they? There is the aforementioned case of Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, a comedian prosecuted for what, again? Expressing frustration at what he sees as persecution of Muslims in France. And in the form of a joke, no less! Refuse to protect such speech at your peril, my friend. And regarding incendiary publications, have you visited Breitbard.com? Here are a few headlines:
“The solution to online ‘harassment’ is simple: Women should log off”
“Would you rather your child had feminism or cancer?”
“Bill Kristol: Republican spoiler, renegade Jew”
Mainstream publications in the US don’t print images of Muhammad, either out of fear or because going out of your way to deeply offend millions of people’s religious sensibilities just isn’t cool. Who am I to judge? But the lack of cartoons in American publications depicting Muhammad fornicating with a goat isn’t due to First Amendment restrictions.
I checked: Dieudonné’s sales did go up after he was prosecuted. So much for silencing that son of a gun with speech laws
Dave B, “This is the political spectrum from left to right – monarchy – oligarchy – republic – democracy – anarchy.”
That’s just crazy talk. I’m not going to argue inside your own crazy world view.
Listing the political spectrum is “crazy talk”? Interesting. What is the political spectrum? Care to define it explicitly?
No. I’m not into oversimplification, myself. I’m sure not into just making up crap like YOUR “political spectrum,” which is just plain silly.
Anarchists can be either left-wing or right-wing, so Jack’s political spectrum makes no sense. Notable left-wing anarchists include Noam Chomsky, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Emma Goldman. When Congress passed the Anarchist Exclusion Act it was leftists who opposed it.
Jack makes up his own definitions, He is rather like Humpty Dumpty, who said “When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
It was received but “not filed” which means that technically it isn’t part of the appeal.
A mandamus petition can be filed with SCOTUS only if the relief sought is not available in any other court – Rule 20 (3)(a). Since Judy has an appeal pending in the Tenth Circuit, obviously he is seeking relief in that court. That being the case, no SCOTUS justice has the authority to grant him relief, so the SCOTUS clerk is prohibited from submitting it to a justice – Rule 22 (1). Not to mention that Judy sent his petition to the wrong justice.
Your thoughtful post requires an equally thoughtful response(s) and candidly, I’m not sure I’m entirely up to it (says he modestly) but I’ll give it a try.
Yes, Hillary’s failure to “win” the election (despite her winning more votes) had many causes. But I will continue to argue that unfettered, unchecked political discourse was one of these causes.
Like a fish who doesn’t notice the water he lives in, you (as a society) may not have noticed it, but we certainly did. Things like “pizzagate” would have been unlawful and immediately prosecuted in France. More generally, the heap of garbage and lies spread over the internet by American and foreign right-wing trolls and echoed by a complicit media in search of ratings (“Some say…”) would have been unlawful and prosecuted here. Also the billions of $$ of free airtime granted to Trump (or his empty podium) while Hillary was reduced to a small corner on the bottom of the screen would also have been unlawful in France, where equal time is guaranteed by law.
Once we might have had a valid discussion about all this, but now you’re the person who is defending the merits of “Fire Alarm First Amendment” while your house is burning — and may I add, the fact that your house is on fire is also threatening the entire neighborhood, while my own “Fire Alarm French Legal System” saved my house from burning down.
Pretty much everyone agrees, I think, that Fox News — going back decades — is one of the factors that have contributed to the sorry state of politics today in the US, and Fox News (as it operates in your country) would be illegal in France. That alone, I think, is indisputable.
To return to my analogy, the purpose of a fire alarm is to prevent a fire; the purpose of your Constitution is to help preserve your democracy. It failed because it couldn’t stop the arsonist (Fox News). Yes, maybe the people are to blame because setting up the alarm was too complicated, but ultimately that’s the alarm’s fault too.
The same argument could be made about guns and the Second Amendment. Most of you are aware that this isn’t working either. AK47 are not muskets, and gangs are not well-regulated militias. Our current French Constitution which dates back to 1958, has been amended 24 times since then, last in 2008. Yours should too, in order to better reflect the times, and the fact that it’s so hard to amend is in fact another dysfunctionality.
If you were Zimbabwe or even Australia or Sweden, I wouldn’t care as much as that, but as I said, right now, the products of said American dysfunctionality are endangering the whole planet, from the climate skepticism nonsense, sabotaging international institutions, to giving free rein to multinational corporations and a chaotic foreign policy.
We have often accused the birthers of being delusional in their “faith” about Obama’s illegitimacy, but don’t fall into the trap about being equally delusional about the functionality of a system that has failed you.
As for France I’m certain our system is far from ideal (is there such a thing as an ideal system?) and I have, like everyone else, disagreed with this or that Law, or Judicial Decision, from time to time. But it is democratic in its inception and enforcement, and so far, it has prevented our house from burning down, which is, after all, the most important thing of all.
Jack’s statements amount to: “Le Pen and Melanchon both like sardines so Le Pen is a geranium.”
The only thing ex-con Judy has gotten remotely correct is saying that if SCOTUS has bounced his petition, it should explain that it did, and it reasons for doing so.
It is possible that ex-con Judy’s petition got lost in the mailroom. But because it is such a financial burden for ex-con Judy to throw paper at SCOTUS, he prefers to imagine some nefarious conspiracy against him. Instead of, yaknow, just resending the papers.
I wonder how many junk petitions like Judy’s that SCOTUS receives in a week? It might take a while to work through them.
It’s also equally possible that ex-con convicted felon terrorist serial liar Judy sent it to the wrong place. Never underestimate incompetence in the scheme of things.
He certainly addressed it to the wrong justice. Justice Sotomayor is responsible for the Tenth Circuit. Rule 22 (3) states:
3. An application shall be addressed to the Justice allotted
to the Circuit from which the case arises. An application
arising from the United States Court of Appeals for the
Armed Forces shall be addressed to the Chief Justice.
When the Circuit Justice is unavailable for any reason, the
application addressed to that Justice will be distributed to
the Justice then available who is next junior to the Circuit
Justice; the turn of the Chief Justice follows that of the most
junior Justice.
Judy decided that Justice Sotomayor is “unavailable” because he demanded that she be recused, so he addressed it to Justice Gorsuch. And of course Judy can’t demand that she be recused, because the decision to recuse or not is solely up to the involved justice.
So by my count Judy’s petition to SCOTUS violated at least three SCOTUS rules, yet he wonders why it hasn’t been docketed.
Of course the question is did he actually get it sent to Gorsuch? Since I haven’t been able to find a copy of his drivel that I can read, I am unsure as to what he is actually asking the court to do since he really doesn’t have anything pending ANYWHERE. Even with the current hot mess which will eventually be dismissed.
It looks like someone tried to hack the site this morning. There was a vulnerability in WordPress, a 0-day exploit related to the password reset mechanism I learned about it when a security scan by gravityscan.com (neat tool that works not only with WordPress but other content management systems) flagged it, and said that there was no fix. Yesterday WordPress released version 4.7.5 to fix it and some other vulnerabilities. All of my WordPress sites put on new security patches automatically, so the patch was already in place when someone tried to reset the “admin” password this morning.
It’s probably a coincidence but someone hacked the Democratic Underground again the other day. They used an html script to replace some user’s posts with a video. The hole was quickly closed and they disabled html tags for now.
DU was hacked early on election night and was down for days afterwards.
Essentially he asked Gorsuch to order the District Court to issue an Order to Show Cause why the defendants should or shouldn’t do something or other – it isn’t clear what, because Judy inexplicably failed to submit his proposed order to SCOTUS.
Otherwise, it’s the usual birther nonsense.
Birtherism called one of the greatest witch hunts in American political history:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2017/05/18/these-are-real-greatest-witch-hunts-political-history/xPxcG3MePEb3UcPVlbNrEL/story.html
There probably are some parts of the U.S. Constitution which need to be updated, but I see the difficulty in amending it as a clear advantage. Otherwise, you might end up with a situation like N.Y. State’s Constitution where anytime an acre of the Adirondack park is added or swapped we have to have a Constitutional Amendment and a voter referendum. Silly!
Obviously there must be a balance.
FWIW here are the amendments that were made to our 1958 Constitution. The article also spells out the procedure to get an amendment though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_amendments_under_the_French_Fifth_Republic
The 9th Circuit rejected Arpaio’s request for a jury trial. Arpaio’s non-jury trial is presently scheduled to start at the end of June.
This appears to be new:
OBAMA RETURNS TO US ONLY TO BE SERVED BIRTHER LAW SUIT IN 10TH CIRCUIT
http://codyjudy.blogspot.com/2017/04/obama-returns-to-us-only-to-be-served.html
And if it were easy to amend the Constitution, same-sex marriage would probably be illegal in the United States. We might also have a balanced budget amendment, which could ruin the economy.
I’d argue that in the same fashion as I would favor fine tuning both the first and the second amendment, and the Electoral College, the things you mention should be put on the table as well in a spirit of fairness and democracy.
If enough of your people ( I do not forget Hillary won more votes) are intent on ruining your country — as seems to be the case now — then they deserve the consequences. To hide behind making it too difficult to review / change is not a solution.
It isn’t”t new: It is just ex-con Judy flogging the dead horse of his failed lawsuit. In 2012, ex-con Judy filed a lawsuit that was dismissed as frivolous; the 10th Circuit affirmed the dismissal; and SCOTUS didn’t review the case because ex-con Judy couldn’t correctly complete his IFP paperwork. In 2017, ex-con Judy moved to reopen that case, and the court denied that request; ex-con Judy sought reconsideration and that request was also denied; so ex-con Judy appealed to the 10th Circuit.
Expect the 10th Circuit to affirm the lower court’s action; then expect SCOTUS to not review; and then expect ex-con Judy to again whine like the baby he is.
The Founders made it deliberately difficult to change the document and for the most part it has proven reasonable. The one real exception was the Volstead Act which was the single most destructive to society act in our existence giving organized crime all but free reign since the greater majority of the public didn’t really support it. .
Lupin: “If enough of your people ( I do not forget Hillary won more votes) are intent on ruining your country — as seems to be the case now — then they deserve the consequences. To hide behind making it too difficult to review / change is not a solution.”
—
Lupin, you and I agree on many things, but not when it comes to the US Constitution.
I can understand your distress and anger; of course we feel it too, and worse. But the very last thing I want to see–in this dark period of political chaos and massive corruption and propaganda–is our Constitution opened up for editing.
The Constitution is our rock. We are not hiding behind it, we are standing upon it as our foundation and defending our ground. If enough of our people are intent on ruining our country, then our only hope is that the Constitution will hold up against them. Besides, it ain’t over til it’s over. Resist.
I am not convinced that there is no solution to the problem of Fox et al. I don’t know what that solution is, but I don’t think the 1st Amendment needs to be amended before we can do something. Lots of speech is actionable — e.g., fraudulent misrepresentations, false advertising, slander, violation of privacy, incitement, lying to the FBI, etc., Perhaps what we really need is more creative lawyering …. I dunno, I haven’t done the analysis yet.
Jerome Corsi says he now has White House press credentials.
https://thinkprogress.org/infowars-white-house-press-credentials-45ab045684cd
If we were just having a purely theoretical discussion, your position would likely carry the day.
The problem is, we’re not.
I am going to postulate that (1) your present political predicament is characteristic of a failed, or rogue, state; and (2) it is attributable in large part to a failure of your Constitution to reflect modern times in at least two specific areas: (a) the Electoral College, and (b) unregulated fake news (for lack of a better term).
If you disagree with either or both of these two propositions, by all means, let’s pick them apart.
Note that you may still overcome and put your country back on the rails (as it were), and I fervently hope that you do, but it will be DESPITE your Constitution, not BECAUSE of it. You will be fixing a problem after the fact, not avoiding one. Far better had it been if you didn’t have to do it in the first place.
Considering that France faced the same challenges (dare I say, attacks?) in the recent election and we prevailed precisely because our checks & balances are more rigorous than yours does “bring water to my mill” as we like to say.
Creative lawyering would be a reasonable lever to bring about what I feel are necessary changes in freedom of speech — to stamp out things like pizzagate or the recent Seth Rich debacle — but if that lever is bound to break against the rock of your Constitution, then obviously the rock must be dealt with.
—-
Indeed, the problem is not theoretical. The right wing money/power have been lobbying state legislatures for the votes to hold a a national constitutional convention. They are chomping at the bit to have their way with our Constitution. And Trump himself has expressed frustration with the 1st Amendment and says he wants to “open up our libel laws” (so he can go after his critics and the press). All they need now is enough low information voters and propaganda to carry the day and obliterate our foundation. Maybe Russia would like to help. I will not pretend they will come to the table with a spirit of fairness and democracy. Nor will I pretend that the American public is presently equipped to properly evaluate the language and impact of proposed amendments. When it comes to the Constitution, I will not give an inch.
Speaking of hacking, etc … How a dubious Russian document influenced the FBI’s handling of the Clinton probe
A secret document that officials say played a key role in then-FBI Director James B. Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation has long been viewed within the FBI as unreliable and possibly a fake, according to people familiar with its contents.
Comey said that he had spoken with the heads of the congressional intelligence committees about the document privately but that it was too sensitive to discuss it in public.
“The subject is classified, and in an appropriate forum I’d be happy to brief you on it,” he told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “But I can’t do it in an open hearing.”
No such briefing occurred before he was fired.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/how-a-dubious-russian-document-influenced-the-fbis-handling-of-the-clinton-probe/2017/05/24/f375c07c-3a95-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html?utm_term=.412cfdf4c296
“Classified”? How is THAT “classified”?
Talk about a “usurper” in the White House.
See Bob’s response.
Judy mistakenly believes that Obama has an obligation to respond to his appeal. What he doesn’t realize is that Obama isn’t even a party to the lawsuit because the District Court ruled that Judy never filed acceptable proof of service.
Obama will not respond to Judy’s appeal, and Judy will complain that he should be given a default judgment. But an appellee is never required to file a response, which Judy should have learned by now, given how many appeals he has filed over the years.
The Court of Appeals will, in due time, deny Judy’s appeal. No other outcome is possible.
I think this is a glass-half-full / glass-half-empty situation, and we’re both correct.
You rightly see the constitution as it stands now as a rampart against those who would continue to inflict serious damage on your country, more than what they have succeeded in doing until now. And you are correct in this. That rampart must be maintained at all cost.
I, on the other hand, see that rampart as a flawed wall, full of holes, which have enabled the enemy to gain a serious foothold inside your city and start setting fires here and there. I say that the holes must be plugged, the rampart must be repaired, buttressed, to better resist new weapons that it wasn’t originally designed to repel…
I agree that, with your city already invaded and under siege, and fires that need to be put out, this is not at all the best time to discuss rampart repairs. 🙂
But do not delude yourself: the holes are there, the old rampart has proved insufficient, and that is why, if you prevail in repelling the invaders (a big if), it will need to be fixed, or you will eventually fall once and for all.
Personally I’m not too optimistic and I think we all have seen the last of the US of A as we’ve known it all our adult lives. 21st century America will belong to Trump and its successors. Brazil on the Moskva.
Arpaio appeals to US Supreme Court to get jury trial.
http://www.azfamily.com/story/35519248/arpaio-asks-us-supreme-court-for-jury-trial-in-contempt-case
For more Arpaio controversy:
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/lawsuit-mcso-retaliated-against-sergeant-whose-cache-of-ids-led-to-arpaio-contempt-charges-9352459?
Just going to leave this here:
https://giphy.com/gifs/news-trump-donald-3og0IuLGs7JABx05Fe
Joe ain’t so tough without a badge to hide behind.
Jesse Watters on Trump’s Birtherism: He Was ‘Just Having a Little Fun’ at Obama’s Expense
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/jesse-watters-on-trumps-birtherism-he-was-just-having-a-little-fun-at-obamas-expense/
“a little fun” which resulted in hundreds of lawsuits? SERIOUSLY?
Awwwww, say it ain’t so, Rupert
Fox News Exposed By Former Contributor As A Scripted And Rigged Scam
Cry me a river, Schmoe.
Ex-con Judy’s latest whinefest: Facebook won’t run his ads!
Indeed.
Ex-con serial liar Judy can’t pay his filing fees and has been claiming he was broke for how long, and he can afford to pay for ads on Faceplant????? What is wrong with this picture?
For the record I find what Kathy Griffin did was distasteful, wrong and just plain stupid. I never liked her anyway.
Judy is, surprise, not being entirely accurate. He didn’t really buy an ad on Facebook. What he did was pay $3.00 to have his Facebook post “boosted” by Facebook. I got the same offer from Facebook today on my RC Radio page. If you call that “buying and ad” I would call that a stretch. I think the algorithm on Facebook kicks in when a post gets a higher than normal number of hits on a page.
I don’t know what this boosting does but I didn’t fall for it.
The post that triggered the boost offer was link to an article I wrote at my blog on the Carl Gallups “Obot Challenge”
Hawaii lied.
Dr. Statist (aka “Conspiracy”),
The “Obama” Library will NOT contain original documents; Only ‘digital copies’… Why?????
Rickey,
Anarchy is defined as “absence of government and absolute freedom of the individual, regarded as a political ideal.” Were the Nazis anarchists?????
Lupin,
Is Le Pen anti government?
My my. Someone is a salty little bitch.
Guess it dawned on you that you’ll go to your grave, never seeing Obama get frogmarched.
____
No, we are not. That’s why no one wants to mindlessly throw around terms with you.
The original documents will be retained by NARA.
Or so you read on Drudge and 15 other RWNIJ web sites.
For the record, I couldn’t agree with you more. I’m glad they fired her. Trump Derangement Syndrome is not an improvement on Obama Derangement Syndrome. You’re acting deranged either way
https://www.archives.gov/
From the National Archives.
Digitizing documents would allow a Presidential Library to provide access to documents that would not normally be available to their visitors. I guess you dislike it when Obama is helpful to people. Maybe he should spend his time thinking only of himself and his importance.
And you do it so well.